61–70 of 112 posts
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If a giant chunk of the constellation can act as a truly huge antenna, what can you get from that? Super high resolution? Seek/dwell time on a target that is effectively infinite?
And we are going to put that in the hands of Elon musk? Are you fucking kidding me?
I'm curious if you could destroy a SpaceX Satelite with a basic laser pointers. Easily enough for normal state actors and some university or engineering lab. You need only to track it and shoot your laser up there (its only 500km) and if it can't dissipate the energy fast enough, it would overheat.
A simple way would be to send up a satellite filled with "bullets" in the orbit. At the opportune moment, the satellite will fire these bullets and they will place themselves in the paths of these satellites (no need to track and target the satellites, the satellites will fly towards the bullets as their paths are fixed), boom space debris and subsequent chain reaction.
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And we are going to put that in the hands of Elon musk? Are you fucking kidding me?
Is there a viable alternative? SpaceX is the only launch provider and satellite operator that is progressing at a rapid pace and driving costs down.
In the west the Rocketlab Neutron partial RLV and planned Stokes Space full RLV stand out.
And maybe in a few decades even Arianespace will end up with a Falcon 9 class vehicle! ;-)
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The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links. At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.
Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And we are going to put that in the hands of Elon musk? Are you fucking kidding me?
Is there a viable alternative? SpaceX is the only launch provider and satellite operator that is progressing at a rapid pace and driving costs down.
The mass of the starlink satellites has doubled twice since V1. It is not hard to assume that there is a significant DoD rideshare payload involved on the existing commercial satellites. Having a sensor platform on every single one would be incredible. The satellites that have been officially branded as Starshield (~183 we know of) could be part of cover or a more "kinetic" mission profile. If I was in charge at the…
And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.
And then the contractual terms mandating commercial spaceflight vendors do this work.
It all gets really complicated, with many thousands of people who are not part of traditional intelligence services all having to keep a massive secret.
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Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.
For Starlink, maybe. However, I'm sure nuclear submarines operating in the arctic (and the US Navy in general) as well as forward operating US bases, would love and be willing to pay for Starshield to cover everywhere.
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And we are going to put that in the hands of Elon musk? Are you fucking kidding me?
You're more worried about that than having it in the hands of the US government?
The US does suffer from a serious amount of issues politically (I'm 100% convinced that presidential republics are flawed) but it's still an organization with plenty of checks requiring popular mandate.
No single private individual should ever hold this kind of influence imho, not even if it is Gandhi or a saint and Musk is quite the other end of the spectrum.
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Does your laser pointer has a hard upper Watt limit? Consumer grade / privat buyable laser can easily be bought. And would i destroy a soda can by overheating it slowly and steadily because the can has no easy way of dissipating heat and has electronics in it which are not heat resistent?
A Starlink V2 Mini sat (what they're currently launching with Falcon 9) has a total solar panel area of about 10.5 * 2.5 *2 = 105 m^2. Solar irradiance in LEO is about 1350 W/m^2 when unobstructed. A space-grade solar panel reflects 5%-10% of that back as light, with the rest absorbed as either heat or electricity. This should give you an idea of what kind of thermal flux the satellite is designed to be dealing with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue with terrestrial wireless links is that you just aren't going to cover every inch of Earth's surface with terrestrial wireless links. At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.
Places only Starllink can reach are an insufficient and shrinking TAM. The only places a terrestrial wireless provider doesn't want to serve are places that can't afford FWA even though it costs less.
At a certain scale you're going to have to make the argument that laying a 10,000KM glass fiber across the ocean for 10-20% more latency is a better value than beaming it around in LEO.